I'm a crypto sceptic but I wasn't always like that. There was a time many years ago when Ethereum was brand new and I was an eager early adopter. I tried creating wallets, tried running a node to see what it does, put in some money through an exchange, and then... Nothing. There was nothing to do after jumping through all those hoops. In fact, turns out the only thing to do with the crypto wallet was to wait for its value to maybe increase over time. (Hence the "number go up" meme.) And for that to be realized, I would need to sell the coins to a new sucker to get real money out again — suspiciously pyramid-like.
And it's still like that today. There's no reason for me to ever open those old wallets again (and surely I don't even have the passwords anymore because self-custody is such a terrible idea UX-wise). And there's no reason to try any of the new stuff because it still obviously does nothing I'd need.
The early Internet wasn't like that. There was plenty to see and try, and interesting people to interact with. Once you tried it, you probably wanted to go back.
Today's early AI is like the early Internet in all the ways that crypto isn't and never will be. There's plenty you can do with ChatGPT and other models, right off the bat. You can install interesting stuff locally or run it on somebody else's server. You don't need to run the crypto-style terrible UX gauntlet and buy coins from a shady operator. AI is already so much easier and more useful and more powerful than crypto-web3-anything, it's competing in a completely different race.
OpenSea has lost 99% of their transaction volume in the past year, and even more of their revenue. I'd be shocked if the same happens to OpenAI. One was a fad, the other isn't.
You need exchanges to do anything useful in crypto. And as we've seen most recently in the FTX case, all the exchanges are wretched hives of scum and villainy.
Not really. There are plenty of decentralized exchanges which are proven, reliable, auditable, generally used by many without issues.
see: https://uniswap.org https://curve.fi/ https://1inch.io
It's the centralized exchanges, which are more akin to traditional financial institutions whose records are not on a publicly visible blockchain but rather private databases or... apparently spreadsheets... which fall victim to the same issues we have seen in the past in the traditional financial world.
If that's not possible, it's useless for the proposed use case: "send and receive money globally without any intermediary".
I ran full nodes, wrote smart contracts, even had 200 GPUs mining ethereum at one point. I still have a bunch of wallets, exchange accounts, ENS names, you name it. Interesting, kind of fun, but then a big "Ok, now what?". Turns out not much other than writing some crypto thing to do another crypto thing that does another crypto thing.
Since getting generally disgusted with the sleaze I saw from the inside I haven't touched any of it in years.
How much difference has this made in my life? Zero (other than not being grossed out on a regular basis). How many times have I had to dust off a wallet or write a smart contract to do something I couldn't do better, faster, and cheaper elsewhere? Zero. How many times have I wanted to buy something and needed crypto? Zero. My experience is an anecdote for the entire space - a lot of time, money, and energy spent with no tangible value and nothing to show for it.
Ethereum is over eight years old, bitcoin nearly 15. ChatGPT has been out for less than a year and I use it on a daily basis to save time and come up with fairly novel things I'm not sure I could on my own. Of course the roots of ChatGPT go back quite far but then again so do merkle trees.
I wish I would have saved the time, money, and grey hairs on crypto for "AI" - I have way more fun with Llama, Whisper, and dozens of other models with immediate and real use cases on a daily basis.
If I want to send someone money, I can send anyone in the world BTC securely and instantly without any intermediary.
If other party wants to convert to fiat then they can do so through an exchange, of which there are many.
Or you could simply use a traditional wire transfer and currency would be converted automatically. USA and Italy exchange millions of dollars every day - it's nothing special.
And when you played around with something the next and better version is already around the next corner!
I never seen something like this :)
- You will need to get permission from your bank to send international wire transfers (sign forms/agreements). - takes a long time (in the order of days) - expensive (~$50-$75 for outgoing international wire, and $25-$50 to receive it).
I remember that in the beginning people were dreaming about self-contained crypto economy where exchanges would not be needed - that didn't really work out.
The forms are for KYC activity, and agreements on what the limitations of liability are. The delays are to validate that the transfers are handled and secured, and ideally can't be charged back. The fees are to cover the costs of the people who do the work for that.
It's not perfect, but it's quite a bit better than the checks and balances that exist for folks who get hit by a scam and are convinced to go to a crypto kiosk and pay a scammer because they have been frightened by a threat to a loved one, or are taken in by a scammer about services being cut off, or desperately paying off a ransomware demand in the hopes that your business or personal records won't be leaked or published.
Within the eurozone (the 20 countries using the euro), there’s SEPA instant credit which clears in less than ten seconds, is available 24/7, and costs practically nothing (a few cents). It’s a fine example of how thoughtful regulation can enable a system that is better than any crypto solution.
Look at venezuela and turkey inflation rate these last two years (and the estimates for the coming years). Look at the SNAFU that happened in Iran and banks defaulting and now inflation kicking in.
It may be an ultra risky bet (and there are serious opsec risks too) but when your savings are going lose 90% of their value in two years anyway, why not take it?
Bitcoin was, after all, created as a gigantic middle finger in response to infinite money printing.
The world is big and there are average consumers in countries other than the US or the EU.
FTX was also a $32B company until it wasn’t.
It’s not a money printer when everybody else also thinks it’s going down.
So the question becomes, what information are you interested on proving to someone on the internet? Say you want to ask an Israeli on Twitter about some bomb stuff and you want to prove you are a reporter. Say you want to prove in a comment on HN, that a repository on github is yours.
However one problem arises. The digital identity or identities, have to be stored somewhere. What happens if there is an outage? OpenAI had a multiple hour outage just today, and an ISP in Australia had a 12 hour outage yesterday. In that case, people cannot prove digitally their identity or identities (hundred of them if they like), even in real life.
The Greek government requires for the digital identity to be proven, access to internet[1]. I was just researching that right now.
Last, Estonia tries to secure the digital identities of their citizens on the blockchain[2]. Why digital identities need to be secured on a blockchain? Just a server or two, in a government building are not enough? How could a globally competitive network of miners, each one holding the digital information independent of any other, be more secure than the one or two servers solution?
[1] https://wallet.gov.gr/ [2] https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/services/legal/tech/assets/estonia...
Binance has let go 1000 people in summer and just again 100 in Sept.
Crypto is very likely neither cheaper nor faster, since you can't spend the crypto directly, and need to FX it through an exchange on the sending side and the receiving side, each of which will take a cut (often percentages of the total). You also need to fund the account sending, and you need to transfer from the exchange receiving to a bank account. Both of those transfers could also cost money. You're also doing FX twice (USD -> crypto, crypto -> Yen), rather than once (USD -> Yen).
If you fuck up an international wire transfer, it may take a month or two for the funds to make it back, and you may need to have numerous conversations with both banks (I've been through this pain more than once and it sucks). If you fuck up a crypto transfer you lose your money with no recourse.
All-in-all the wire transfer is the better (and probably cheaper/faster) experience.